


Telepath Age Reckoning

by pallasite



Series: Behind the Gloves [65]
Category: Babylon 5, Babylon 5 & Related Fandoms
Genre: Backstory, Canon Compliant, Fix-It, Gen, How canon misled you, Psi Corps, Telepath culture, Worldbuilding, telepaths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-06
Updated: 2017-06-06
Packaged: 2018-11-09 21:43:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11113452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pallasite/pseuds/pallasite
Summary: Why are telepath ages a little different from normal ages?The prologue ofBehind the Glovesishere- please read!





	Telepath Age Reckoning

**Author's Note:**

> What is this series? Where are the acknowledgements, table of contents and universe timelines? See [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10184558/chapters/22620590).
> 
>  _Behind the Gloves_ is an in-depth series exploring a different side of the Psi Corps from the one presented in canon. This collection of stories presents readers with history, context, and slices of the lives of relatable protagonists covering 150 years of canon history, from the inception of laws that segregated telepaths through the aftermath of the Telepath War. By providing readers with the "rest of the story," with a nuanced (and not "one-sided") presentation of facts and events, I demonstrate that canon is misleading, and the truth is not as it seems.
> 
> If you like _Behind the Gloves_ and would like to send me an email, I can be reached at counterintuitive at protonmail dot com. Do you have questions? Would you like to tell me what you like about this work? Email me!

As we covered in [Emily's first fic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10610514/chapters/23462715), [Andy's third fic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10610514/chapters/23462715) (Barbara saves the day on Birthday), as well as elsewhere, telepaths in the Corps celebrate a collective Birthday holiday on April 12th, the day the Corps was founded. (Birthday is really big deal for children, but celebrated less among adults in the Corps. YMMV.)

For reasons never sufficiently explained in canon, telepaths count age by a variant of the traditional [East Asian age reckoning system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Asian_age_reckoning) \- although babies are born at "0," they all collectively age a year on April 12th, and it is this age reckoning system that is used in the cadres and in telepath schools. The reason for this practice may have both to do with Asian influence on telepath culture (the Corps extends across all EA jurisdiction, after all) as well as with a desire on the part of the Western founders of the Corps to build a "collective society" among telepaths, one that places less emphasis on the individual and more emphasis on the community and "the family" (the Corps). Some of the telepaths who became influential in the early days of the Corps had themselves already embraced a "collective ideal" for telepath culture, based on the view of all telepaths as "kin and kith" (a view maintained in the days of the Corps, and expanded upon under the [political metaphor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_as_a_model_for_the_state) of the Corps as Mother and Father, which is also Confucian in its influences). As all telepaths are "children of the Corps," it is the Corps' birthday that "matters" over the birthdays of individuals. (The holiday is called "Birthday" as if the Corps is a "person," and children celebrate it as their own personal birthdays, but it's also a celebration of the establishment of the quasi-nationhood that is the Corps. The personal and the political are inseparable.)

Generally speaking, the East Asian influence on telepath culture is occasionally mentioned in canon (the repeated mentions of "[Rashomon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashomon)" come to mind), but telepath values reflect East Asian influence more often and more deeply than canon directly specifies. This post discusses just one of these aspects - I explore a second aspect [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10604910) (an excerpt from the Psi Corps Student Handbook about sacrifice), and there are several others to come.

Part of my challenge in writing _Behind the Gloves_ is to present concepts and cultural values - especially those that are so foreign to Western readers - clearly and, as much as possible, without bias. It is very easy for authors, intentionally or otherwise, to present values that are "different" as "wrong," "evil," and so forth, especially when they are taken out of context and presented in a one-dimensional way. (Face it - you were taught to believe that "The Corps is Mother, the Corps is Father" means something NEFARIOUS.) To the extent that canon presents telepath culture with negative bias, I aim to walk it back and present values, beliefs and customs neutrally (or positively) and in proper cultural context.

Back to birthdays. Telepaths' "real" birthdays aren't a secret - some telepaths do inquire about them, or find out when they were born one way or the other. But it's not seen as a big deal, and some telepaths don't care or ever find out the exact day on which they were born. Bester, for instance, never inquired as to the exact day of his birth, because it didn't matter to him in the least. It didn't matter to his cadremate Brett, either, and at one point later in life they discuss how their _not caring about such things_ is one of the cultural values that separates Cadre Primers (or more generally, Corps-raised telepaths) from laters, who began their lives in the normal world.

Counting age differently is, like gloves, a cultural point that separates telepaths from normals, and many Corps-raised telepaths like it that way.

Indeed, "individual" birthday parties would be seen in the Corps as selfish, since they involve the celebration of an individual over the community, and... not for any special achievement, really - just for being there. Corps-raised telepaths don't do that. Special achievements are honored (excellence in academics or sport, exceptional bravery or sacrifice, and so on), but "birthday" is collective.

 _Behind the Gloves_ uses the telepath age-reckoning system where it makes sense to do so (for example, in stories about Corps' raised telepaths such as Al Bester) and normal age-reckoning at other times (for example, in stories about laters who use the normal system).


End file.
